SciFY Annual Report 2016 | English

We share the technology, we create solutions

Annual Report 201 6

ANNUAL REPORT 201 6 1

Annual Report of Projects & Activities for 201 6

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Annual Report 201 6

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Here is what we have done in 201 6!

VassilisSalapatas

Co-founder and Executive Manager

Dr George Giannakopoulos

Co-founder and CTO

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One more year of work, collaboration and excitement, a year of marching forward despite the difficulties. In 201 6 we had some valuable experiences, we tasted the sweet flavor of creation and offering, but also the bitter feeling of painful decisions.

We managed a lot, we failed in many, but the sure thing is that in the end we were able to provide real solutions that make the world around us a better place.

We won priceless “thank you�, we saw our work being recognized and, the most important, we had the pleasure to see the ever-increasing positive social impact of our effort.

We have strengthened and expanded fruitful partnerships, improved internal processes, empowered skills and intensively cultivated all areas of our activities.

Through the barren landscape of today's reality, a rich fruition: Free

In spring and autumn 201 6 we have started two new ventures:

For Democracy, for participation in decision-making, intervention in our city, journalism, free software and open data.

For the Civil Society, for helping its actions, supporting its effectiveness and promoting its work.

For people with disabilities, blindness, mobility problems, cerebral palsy, Attention Deficit - Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

We continued the development of advanced A.I. applications and we are sharing the knowledge more systematically and more targeted.

SciFY Academy, has matured, all our events are fully booked. The Academy has been enriched by additional seminars and production of educational material.

Recognizing the strongly expressed need, we are already building a new pillar of actions on education and skills development.

We resent that in 201 6, we did not manage to maintain all the work positions we had created, but we continue being here stronger, creative and optimistic.

We will insist on making good things happen, with faith in our vision, committed to our mission, for technological solutions that serve society.

information systems, applications, platforms, portals, digital educational games, informative tools, educational material, events, presentations, conferences, workshops. With the attention focused on the final beneficiaries, but also with their participation as well as with all the people involved, for the implementation of projects of substantial value.

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1 . We “run� our first crowdfunding campaign . The partial success of the campaign, was the starting point of a sustained effort that led to the creation of our beloved game for blind children Memor-i, which is still evolving.

2. We systematized, methodically organized and applied new procedures and practices for the attraction, education and use of our volunteers.

The SciFYteam, together with our wonderful volunteers, our collaborators, our supporters, our friends and all ofyou.

To make our reality better!

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Free Communication and Entertainment System for Disabled People - Talk and Play 14

Results:

• We created and gave for free the Talk and Play system, that allows to people with cerebral palsy and related limitations to: > communicate with their relatives > utilize their free time with greater independence > exercise their mental functions at home, under the guidance of their occupational therapist.

Impact:

• 4 Institutions installed and use the Talk and Play project.

• We offered 36 complete systems to Institutions and people that use them in their homes.

• We see the hundreds of beneficiaries increasing daily: Institutions, health professionals, disabled people.

• We presented Talk and Play in two events to more than 250 people.

• It was rated as excellent (4,75 / 5) by the end users.

• We reduced the overall cost of the solution up to 89%, after a research we made for the hardware.

• There was wide press coverage including 1 5 articles at the press.

• We created an original wireless solution for the switch, and we offered the project plans as open hardware.

• We have recorded the needs to further develop the application.

• We continue to actively support the project, by forming a group of volunteers to support it.

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In our effort we have valuable partners: The Laboratory of Ergospirometry and Rehabilitation of the Athens Medical School (Evangelismos Hospital), ELEPAP, the Social Welfare Center of Attica Region and the CASP Hadjipatereion Foundation.

The project was developed by SciFY with the exclusive donation by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.

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Memory games for the blind - Memor-i

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Results:

• We created the widely-known Memory game with cards, in digital version making it ideal for blind children too.

• We seeked for funds through Crowdfunding and we made it thanks to you!

• We cooperated with Institutions and special education instructors to develop it • We created 3 new games • We train memory, hearing, concentration and perception, in a very fun way through “Noah’s Arc”.

Impact:

• We offered the games for free in gamesfortheblind. org.

• Continuous game downloads • 1 0+ Press publications • We have trained specialists in utilizing the games • We publicly shared the knowledge from the Memor-i games development and we demonstrated the results in conferences and schools.

See what we learned here.

• We learn music by recognizing the sound of musical instruments • We find the category of the musical instrument With the generous support of Wind Hellas SA, we were able to create two musical versions of the game.

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The first Free Electronic Games for blind children - LEAP

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Results:

Impact:

• The first electronic games for blind • Overal, over 4,500 children play, have children that we have created, are fun and learn through our games complete and now we are counting the results and their impact.

• Over 1 ,000 children with no visual problems became aware of issues • 3 free electronic games for blind around blindness through the children are ready informational activities we organized and took part in • They were distributed in 2 languages: Greek, English • At least 4 organizations have installed and used them • They operate in 3 operating Systems: Windows, Mac and Linux • We offered the games for free through the accessible website • 1 0+ Press publications gamesfortheblind. org.

• We organized 2 tournaments between sighted and blind children The project was developed in cooperation with the Department of Audio and Visual Arts of the Ionian University.

The project was funded by Iceland, Lichtenstein and Norway in the frame of the “We are all citizens” Program, which is part of the EEA Financial Mechanism for Greece, known as the EEA Grants . The Financial Administrator of the Program is the Bodossaki Foundation . The goal of the Program is the empowerment of civil society in our country and the strengthening of social justice, democracy and sustainable development.

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Application for Persons with Vision Impairments - ICSee

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Results:

Impact:

• We presented the application and the results in relevant events to maximize the impact.

• Vima science: “ With the eyes of technology- The free application ICSee gives light to people with severe vision problems”

• We have completed the second version • 1 ,000+ persons have already of ICSee application for smartphones downloaded the application changing and tablets as well, that allows people their everyday life. with Visual Impairments to easily read a receipt, a name on a doorbell etc.

• We offered the application for free through Google Play.

• We adapted the application to users’ specific needs, with multiple filters and • Dozens of publications were made for audio menu. the ICSee project. Some of them:

• PROTOTHEMA Technology: “The first free application for people with reduced vision from SciFY” • Kathimerini (printed edition): “Application improves reduced vision”.

The project was initially funded by SciFY and the "Electronic Services for the Software" project, while the new edition of the application was funded by The John

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Development and Dissemination of Open S. Latsis Public Benefit Foundation.

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Platform for Strengthening Public Consultation - DemocracIT

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Results:

Impact:

• We made public consultations friendlier, • 1 ,800+ direct beneficiaries of the the commenting easier and we project increased the control by the citizens, • We organized 3 educational workshops through the DemocracIT platform. about: > Open Technologies and participation • We organized and participated in 7 (FOSSCOMM 201 6) events informing and raising awareness > Increasing participation with on participatory issues, with hundreds Gamification methods (Charokopeio of participants.

University) > Increasing the Impact of participatory • We created an informative and processes (New Technologies promotional video for the project.

Laboratory in Communication, Education and Media, University of Athens) • We gave radio and TV interviews • Over 1 ,500 individual users visited the DemocracIT platform during the last month of the project’s development.

• We created educational material • We continued after the completion of the project: We presenting the value of the platform in european events the value of the platform The project was developed in cooperation with The

Department of Informatics and Telematics of Harokopio University of Athens and Place Identity.

The project was funded by Iceland, Lichtenstein and Norway in the frame of the Project ‘’We are all citizens’’, which is part of the EEA Financial Mechanism for Greece, which is known as EEA Grants . The Grant Administrator for the Project is Bodossaki Institution . The Goal of the Project is the strengthening of the civil society in our country and the enhancement of social justice, democracy and viable development.

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Information on Civil Society issues - NewsDynamo

Results:

Impact:

• We cooperated with the Bodossaki Foundation so as to offer a useful tool for everyone.

• With 7 different news categories, we made the information more efficient and targeted.

• We developed NewsDynamo: the news • We created a place where everyone portal of Social Dynamo for Civil Society who offers to society can be updated issues. fast.

• The news are categorized smartly, in a pleasant and user friendly environment.

The project was implemented thanks to a Bodossaki Institution donation.

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Volunteer management system - VoluntAction

Results:

• We developed the VoluntAction platform so that organizations can manage their volunteers effectively.

Impact:

• Already two significant organizations in Greece use the platform, organizing the work of 600+ volunteers that change our world.

• We created an English edition, so that it can be used by foreign organizations as • More organizations are expressing their well. interest in using VoluntAction See here how you can use it.

The project was implemented in cooperation with Ε. Κ. PΙ. ΖO.

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We make our city better - City R Us Results:

Impact:

• We created a pilot application to • We cooperated with The Municipality of demonstrate that we can live in our city, Athens in the frame of the Radical the way we want!

European Project .

• With the City R US we can mark on an • The application has been offered with interactive map all the spots we enjoy in open source licenses so that it can be our neighborhoods, and share them used by other municipalities as well. publicly.

• We presented the application in the 4th • The accessible places in Athens are Smart Cities Conference to a large recorded and the exclusion of people number of representatives of the Local with disabilities is reduced.

Government. See here all the Tools for Municipalities that ScIFY has developed.

• See here the video for the City R Us application .

The project has been funded by the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Program of the European Union under grant agreement No 3251 38.

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Beneficiary management system - Benefile

Results:

Impact:

• We created an online platform that • We installed Benefile in NGOs. helps organizations to keep medical, social and legal files of the beneficiaries • We shared the platform for free with electronically in a secured way. customization options so as to meet multiple and different needs.

• We cooperated with 3 organizations in order to accurately meet their needs.

• We created a demo: Try the Benefile demo here.

• We help the ones that offer to society maximize their impact.

The project was developed in cooperation with PRAKSIS , The Greek Council for Refugees and ARSIS and with the support of "SolidarityNow" .

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EUCROWD • European project “Europe for Citizens – EUCROWD” that is funded with the support of the EU programme “Europe for Citizens” • We Co-decide the future of Europe with Crowdsourcing methodologies • We cooperate with 7 other operators from all over Europe • We organize open dialogues in 7 countries • We research existing good practices • We create communities • We create a framework for using crowdsourcing in the decision-making process of the European Union

The project “European Citizens Crowdsourcing – EUCROWD” has been funded with the support of the EU programme “Europe for Citizens”.

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Q4ADHD • European Project under the ERASMUS+ KA2 Programme (Cooperation for Innovation and the Exchange of Good Practices - Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training).

• 8 partners from 5 European countries • We ensure the quality of professional training for students with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) • We are setting up a European Quality Assurance Framework for Vocational Education (VET) for people with ADHD • We promote the Vocational Education for people with ADHD • We create mechanisms and Quality Assurance tools in vocational programmes for students with ADHD

The project is funded by ERASMUS+ PROGRAMME - KA2 Cooperation for Innovation and the Exchange of Good Practices Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training, AGREEMENT NUMBER – 201 6-1 -BG01 -KA202-02371 4

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We share knowledge & Develop skills

SciFY Academy Through the monthly educational seminars of our SciFY Academy initiative, for the free dissemination of knowledge, we managed to: • Train 892 people • Activate 30 Speakers • Offer 30 hours of teaching • We organized 1 0 educational seminars • We covered 1 0 domains: 1 . Digital Marketing 2. Google AdWords 3. Social Entrepreneurship 4. Internet of Things 5. Big Data 6. Open Data 7. Bioinformatics 8. Speech synthesis and recognition technologies 9. Assistive Technologies 1 0. History of Science • We developed 6 Business Skills 1 . Finding Opportunities 2. Creativity 3. Idea evaluation 4. Ethical and Sustainable way of thinking 5. Collaboration 6. Organisation and Management Get informed about the SciFY Academy educational seminars in this link.

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Workshop Visual Storytelling Seminar A two-day event devoted to the strengthening of the communication skills of NGOs. We learned how we can better communicate the goals and actions of our organization.

• 35 attendees • 30 Civil Society organizations • 1 0 hours of teaching and workshops • 2 ToolKits • 1 message: Let’s make our voices, be heard!

See here the results of the educational seminar.

We produce educational material

Developing games for the blind

For Electronic Democracy

On the occasion of the series of games for blind children, we gathered the knowledge, experience and good practices in a presentation that has already been presented in Greek and international conferences.

See it here.

With the completion of the DemocracIT project, a platform that is aiming at the strengthening of public consultations, we made a research in other countries’ practices. The results, which were presented in Greece and abroad, can be seen here.

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The people of SciFY 36

• In 201 6 we grew bigger! After an open call we created 4 groups of volunteers: > Developers Group > Communication Team > Impact Team > Education Team Watch here the results of the volunteer groups for 2016.

• Thanks to the programme "Desmos for Youth" we added another member in our team in 201 6: Spyros Nikolakis, who has worked on more than 1 5 projects. The matching that Desmos made was so successful that we decided to extend our cooperation with Spyros even after the conclusion of the programme.

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Cooperations

1 . The Stavros Niarchos Foundation 2. The John S. Latsis Public Benefit Foundation 3. The Bodossaki Foundation 4. U.S. Embassy 5. The Norwegian Embassy 6. Google 7. The New York Times 8. National Center for Scientific Research “Demokritos” (NCSR “Demokritos”) 9. The Eugenides Foundation 1 0. The Athena Research and Innovation Center in Information, Communication and Knowledge Technologies 1 1 . Harokopio University of Athens 1 2. The Department of Audio & Visual Arts of the Ionian University 1 3. Sofia University

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1 4. Municipality of Athens 1 5. INNOVATHENS - The Hub of Innovation & Entrepreneurship of Technopolis City of Athens 1 6. Impact Hub Athens 1 7. PRAKSIS 1 8. ΕΛ/ΛΑΚ 1 9. Solidarity Now 20. Desmos 21 . E.Κ.PΙ.ZO. 22. The Greek Council for Refugees (GCR) 23. ARSIS – Association for the Social Support of Youth 24. Sociality - Digital Communication Cooperative 25. INNOETICS 26. Entranet 27. Oikomedia

In 201 6 we cooperated with 50+ organizations and operators in Greece and abroad for the development and execution of projects, programmes and events.

28. Hostwriter 29. The Center for Education and Rehabilitation for the Blind (CERB) 30. Ι.Μ.Panagiotopoulos School 31 . Erasmios Greek-German School 32. DIMITRA Educational Organisation 33. Speech and Accessibility Laboratory 34. Accessibility Unit for Students with Disabilities of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens 35. Hellenic Association of Assistive Technology 36. ELEPAP-Rehabilitation for The Disabled 37. Center for Social Welfare of the Region of Attica

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38. Unit of Ergospirometry and Rehabilitation of the Medical School of Athens 39. Social Work Foundation Hatzipatereio KASPP 40. Inštitut za elektronsko participacijo 41 . European Citizen Action Service 42. Stichting Netwerk Democratie 43. ManaBalss 44. Open Ministry 45. Démocratie Ouverte 46. The Democratic Society 47. Effebi Association 48. UNINETTUNO 49. Folkuniversitetet 50. NART - National Association of Resource Teachers 51 . FTF - FORO Tecnico de Formacion

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Events that we we organized and supported

Athens Democracy Forum Opening Event - The Good the Bad and The Ugly

In 201 6 we coorganized with the New York Times , the electronic professional networks of journalists Oikomedia and Hostwriter , and The Municipality of Athens, The Good the Bad and The Ugly event which was dedicated to journalism in a fully crowded with journalists and Political analysts ImpactHub.

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2nd CSR Connecting Day In the summer we assisted in the 2nd CSR Connecting Day conference that was coorganized by The Bodossaki Foundation and the Institute of Communication, where we presented our projects: “LEAP Electronic games for blind children” and “DemocracIT - Enhancing Electronic Democracy” as well as SciFY’s overall course.

Language Technology Industry meets in Brussels Of course, we could not miss an international conference on Technology, Innovation and Natural Language Processing, such as:

“Language Technology Industry meets in Brussels” , where we presented the project “NewSum - Polyphonic & Instant News Update” one of the first projects

SciFY developed in co-operation with NCSR “Demokritos” .

Athens Science Festival 201 6

TEDx Panteion University 201 6 No more recommendations are needed for TEDx or for the event of TEDxPanteionUniversity. It was a great pleasure and honor to attend the TEDx stage and talk about SciFY.

4th Smart Cities Conference

The meeting with our friends goes on every year. Once again, we were present in Technopolis for the Athens Science Festival that was organized by SciCo where hundreds of children had the In a targeted audience we presented the opportunity to play our games: Tic-Tactools we have developed for Toe and Tennis and to be informed about Municipalities . People from the Civil the new technologies.

Society and representatives of the local authorities were informed about the free tools for smart cities that we have developed, and for their results.

Panorama of Entrepreneurship Metropolitan 201 6 College: In the biggest event about entrepreneurship and business Presentation orientation for young people, in for 201 6 we of Assistive attended and presented SciFY’s actions and had the opportunity to discuss and Technologies exchange ideas with young eager and of Entrepreneurship

visionary people.

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Panorama

We trained ergotherapy students , showing them our assistive technologies and discussing what we have learned from our experience so far.

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They said about us #WhereGoodThingsHappen

In 201 6 there were more than 1 00 press mentions about SciFY's projects and actions, showing that we can all create good news .

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Interviews:

Publications:

• In the TV show of Emmanuela Argeti • For the Electronic Games for Blind and Marina Demertzian's “Dipli Matia” Children a total of about 20 articles of ERT, we had the opportunity to talk were written (some of them: “Avgi”, about our projects: ICSee and LEAP. “Το Vima” , “TVXS” ) It was a great honor Watch the interview here (after for us to publish this project on the site 2:24:1 2) of the internationally renowned institution: “Perkins School for The • At the radio stations: “Athens 9.84”, Blind” and the Gaming community, “ΕRΑ 1 ” and in particular "Ideodromio" “GameWorld” .

by Irene Yannaras and in “ΕRΤ 3” we gave interviews about the completion • Talk and Play has also been widely of the “Talk and Play” project. recognized as at least 1 0 articles have been written, such as those in • At the Panorama broadcast of the radio “Κathimerini” , in “Lifo” and in “ALPHA TV”. station "praktoreioFM" of the Athens News Agency, we talked about the Memor-i project.

• More than 20 publications have been made for the ICSee project, which helps people with reduced vision. Indicatively: “Proto Thema” and “Το Vima” .

• And our actions such as "SciFY Academy" gathered several articles and publications like this in “Athens 9. 84” • “Huffington Post” made a tribute to SciFY titled: "SciFY, the Greek NGO innovating in science" • Finally, for the new "News Dynamo" news portal and for our cooperation with the “Bodossaki Foundation", a publication was published at “ΈTHNOS”, with a large number of reshares.

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SciFY in the

Digital World We have reached 3,000 Followers in Facebook, Thank you!

Our goal is SciFY's digital sites to be an information hub for our areas of interest.

If you want to learn our news, follow us here:

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Stay tuned for more‌ Already from the start of 201 7 we have put forward many interesting projects to continue changing the lives of people.

Our Goals for the new year: Education and skill empowerment Supporting people with dementia and their carers Helping people with reduced opportunities

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